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On the day of those pot busts I swear I could feel civilization starting to fall apart even faster than normal then all of a sudden it stopped, just briefly but enough for there to be hope again throughout the land.

Thank you San Luis Obispo and other members of the multi-agency drug interdiction task force. Your salaries are well worth it.

This is why we have such resistance to legalization. It is all about the jobs. How anyone can justify this with a straight face is just amazing….and this is in a state that boasts it is a huge cash crop. It is up for legalization on the ballot. Has already been legalized for medical use……and the fucking state is bankrupt. Go figure.
I guess it is all about priorities.

I’m in the cautiously skeptical camp re: the Wikileaks video. But it’s worth pointing out that anyone who serves seven years in the Army and leaves as a Specialist (E-4) is likely a dirtbag. The Army tends to promote quickly and without prejudice in most specialties (E-4 is pretty much automatic for everyone by their two-year mark). It takes a concerted effort to remain in such a low pay grade for so long.

That Wired Interview is pretty eye opening. Iraqi’s are told not to help injured people? We’re creating a population of people who are being instructed to be indifferent, our soldiers and their citizens.

Matt, I don’t discount that possibility. But his anecdote about his NCOs’ actions smells of a sort of attitude that more easily (and in my experience, routinely) explains his rank upon discharge. I’ve known enough “Private Fuckups” to suspect that the guy’s story isn’t entirely accurate. Either he’s grinding an axe or that entire unit’s chain of command is jacked up like a football bat. Both are possible, but one explanation is more probable than the other.

The wired interview is worthwhile. Its nice to have another source point out that, yes there were weapons present, and yes the first round of firing was justified. Those were my biggest problems with the Wiki-leaks video, it would have been much better if they had simply released the video without the editing and adding the ominous name.

That being said, avoid the comments. It fluctuates between guys advocating ‘nuking hajis’ and people calling the interviewee an imperialist murderer for hire. So yeah.

“…”I believe handcuffs are a wonderful tool when they’re on the right people,” said Russell Pearce, the Republican state senator who wrote the bill….”

“…Pearce’s single-minded dedication to the issue of illegal immigration may have to do with his personal history, some of his colleagues say. As a cop Pearce was shot in the chest and finger by a gang member. Three years ago, his son, also a sheriff’s deputy, was severely wounded by a criminal who happened to be an illegal immigrant….”

I was pretty distraught over the whole situation with the children. So I went to a sergeant and asked to see [the mental health person], because I was having a hard time dealing with it. I was called a pussy and that I needed to suck it up and a lot of other horrible things. I was also told that there would be repercussions if I was to go to mental health.

Wired.com: What did you understand that to mean?

McCord: I would be smoked. Smoked is basically like you’re doing pushups a lot, you’re doing sit-ups … crunches and flutter kicks. They’re smoking you, they’re making you tired. I was told that I needed to get the sand out of my vagina…. So I just sucked it up and tried to move on with everything.

Yeah, there’s something definitely fishy about that soldier. I mean, he had a low rank so he was probably “a dirtbag,” and, you know, he said the military did bad things (and we all know the military always admits when it does bad things), and he was upset to see wounded kids who were obviously going to be terrorists because their dead dad who was trying to help wounded people in the street was obviously a terrorist and there are so many terrorists in the area due to the terrorism of terrorists and terrorists, terrorists, terrorists.

It’s ok. If you could ask all the Iraqis who were killed in the process of “liberating” them whether it was worth it, I’m sure they would all agree that it was. In fact, I’m just positive they would be thanking us for killing them.

Yessiree. If there’s anything that everyone agrees on its that dying for the United States is an honor. I mean, look at how the U.S. improves the world with its perpetual warring. We go into a cesspool and leave a Garden of Eden. Sure it hurts a bit at first. Imagine putting your hand in a vice and slowly cranking it down, crushing your bones. Sure, there’s pain involved, but imagine the pleasure when you get your hand out of there!

Killing people to save them isn’t so bad once you have the right perspective. Just ask Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush. How can you question the wisdom of people who have achieved such status? Especially if you’re just a faceless work-a-day nobody…

I bet the world is just waiting and wondering who we’re going to save next…

Wonderful – we’re using special language to cover the fact that they stole a bunch of bikes. Ooh, look, they’re confiscating the bikes. We find out also that this was a seizure later in the article.

No.

It’s known as theft.

Imagine some guy breaking into your house to confiscate a few items that he can pawn for his next drug trip. Or, maybe you could seize someone’s car.

It’s so ludicrous sounding when put in the proper context, so why do people not understand how ludicrous it sounds in articles like these?

Don’t get me wrong, police often do seize and confiscate items. I saw a report from a couple of days ago here where a guy was pulled over for running a stop sign, and it turned out that he had four outstanding warrants and no drivers license, not to mention a loaded gun under his seat and a couple of ounces of pot (a lot of it) in a bag. The police seized the pot and confiscated the weapon. Get it? They did it in the course of a legal investigation. He isn’t legally allowed to have either item.

The feds don’t recognize a driver’s license as proof of legal residency. How many other people carry any other form of identification?

“The law requires state and local police to determine the status of people if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they are illegal immigrants and to arrest people who are unable to provide documentation proving they are in the country legally.”

How long until they are using this as cover to arrest whoever they damn well please.

#6 | Bryan | April 22nd, 2010 at 3:56 pm

“I hope AZ cops start stopping white Americans on the assumption that they might be Canadian. That will put an end to the new law really quick.”

How many other laws have been put to an end because it allows people to be arrested for no real reason?

1. Actually, one of the 9 agencies was the U.S. FOREST SERVICE!!! They’re probably the ones that got left out.

2. I’m all about USA minding its own business, but seriously, let’s not act like Iraq was some kind of Garden of Eden BEFORE we got there. We didn’t start the process of training people toward indifference — that happened with your family members getting “disappeared” into one of Saddam’s prisons and there being nothing you could do about it. The order to not stop and aid, however inhumane, is for their protection, which is obvious in this case.

My perspective about Iraq is colored by my belief that it’s not the business of the United States to liberate any population from its own government. Our job in Iraq ended when we were satisfied they didn’t have any WMDs (and that assumes the WMD story wasn’t a complete fabrication, which strains credulity way beyond the breaking point).

I’m all about USA minding its own business, but seriously, let’s not act like Iraq was some kind of Garden of Eden BEFORE we got there.

Who’s suggesting that? Nobody is suggesting that.

The order to not stop and aid, however inhumane, is for their protection, which is obvious in this case.

That’s like saying an armed robber’s orders to “keep your hands up” is for your protection. Lower your hands and you will be murdered. In this case, give aid to those in need of aid, and you will be murdered.

That’s like saying an armed robber’s orders to “keep your hands up” is for your protection. Lower your hands and you will be murdered. In this case, give aid to those in need of aid, and you will be murdered.

Another example would be telling people that drugs will ruin their lives and then proving it by throwing them in prison for it…

Whatever happened to candidate Obama? Isn’t our occupation supposed to be ended by about now? Remember when Candidate Obama promised to withdraw all of our troops within 16 months ? Isn’t that date coming up sometime soon… I mean, Obama officially was sworn in on Jan 20, 2009. So 16 months from that date is May 20th, 2010, correct? There should be a little declaring victory-esq spoof party thrown on that day celebrating the completion of the withdrawl of all of our troops and the real end of the Iraq war. I hope there are articles that day highlighting his broken promise. Aug is the supposed day that all ‘combat’ troops will be out, but the obvious question then is, what the hell is the difference between a ‘combat’ troop and a ‘non-combat’ troop?